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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

I installed slackware 10.2 kernel 2.4.31 on a USB hard drive. I installed the lilo on the root partition of the drive and when i boot off the drive lilo will freeze up with just L on the screen. I know this means there is a disk error somewhere but i havnt had any luck finding it. I tried booting with a bootdisk using: mount root=/dev/sda1. it starts to boot but eventually goes to a error cannot mount root file system kerenel panic. If someone could help me out or has any input i would greatly appriciate it.

I've experienced similar problems from IDE drives when installing LILO to the root partition. One possibility that I could think of is to install LILO to the MBR of the USB drive, at least this has worked for me on IDE devices. It should be similar in most cases. If you were able to boot from a bootdisk, then this would appear to be part of the problem. As for why you are receiving a kernel panic, the only suggestion that I could make would be an incorrect and/or missing setting from the compiled kernel.

Ok i installed lilo to MBR and got it to come up. It starts to boot but then says the same thing the boot disk did. Kernel panic cannot mount root /dev/sda2. I think the problem is it might be trying to mount the root filesystem before it installs the USB drive. Could someone tell me how i could change it to install the usb drive before it trys to mount the filesystem?